The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and its Music Director Rafael Payare extend their Pentatone discography with a recording of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben and Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, sung by star soprano Sonya Yoncheva. The pairing of works may seem odd at first, with Strauss at his most exuberant and Mahler at his most introspective. They share, however, a deeply personal and autobiographical approach by two giants of fin-de-siècle music coming to terms with the world they lived in and their place in it. After their acclaimed recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Payare and the orchestra further explore this late-Romantic repertoire that fits them like a glove. Unique about this project is the participation of Sonya Yoncheva, an opera star presenting herself in German orchestral song for the first time on record.

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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 1. Der Held
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 2. Des Helden Widersacher
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 3. Des Helden Gefährtin
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 4. Des Helden Glück
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 5. Des Helden Walstatt
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 6. Gewissheit des Sieges
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 7. Des Helden Weltflucht
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Strauss: Ein Heldenleben, op.40 TrV190 (1899): 8. Des Helden Vollendung
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Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (1901): 1. Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft
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Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (1901): 2. Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!
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Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (1901): 3. Um Mitternacht
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Mahler: RÃ¼ckert-Lieder (1901): 5. Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
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Mahler: Rückert-Lieder (1901): 4. Liebst du um Schönheit

Europadisc Review

By conductor Rafael Payare’s own admission, ‘Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben may not seem like the most obvious pairing for an album.’ Yet on this, his second disc for Pentatone at the helm of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (where he’s now in his second season as music director), he presents these two turn-of-the-century works by the leading composer-conductors of the day as complementary aspects of the same Zeitgeist. Strauss, in arguably the greatest of his tone poems, seems to encapsulate the summation of the Romantic era’s obsession with the hero-figure, complete with echoes of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’, not to mention unabashed self-quotation and other autobiographical elements. Mahler, on the other hand, setting texts by the great Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert, is more concerned with the artist’s estrangement from the world, declaring of the song ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ (‘I am lost to the world’) that ‘It is truly me’.

There are fascinating areas in common, however. Strauss’s work ends with the Hero’s retreat from the world and self-effacement to achieve completion. Away from the bombast of the opening section and the organised mayhem of the ‘battle’ sequence there are moments of exquisite beauty and inwardness, if not quite the translucent restraint of scoring to be found in Mahler’s songs of two years later. (Strauss himself eventually mastered that skill in his later operas and song settings.) There’s much food for thought here as these two creative geniuses from central Europe faced – each in his own way – the challenges posed by the new century, its artistic baggage and cultural neuroses.

A remarkable feature of this disc is the extent to which Payare – a horn-playing alumnus of Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra – has already stamped his own authority on the Montreal orchestra. In the 1980s and 90s this was the go-to band for refinement in the early 20th-century French repertoire (notably Ravel) under Charles Dutoit. In the 2000s it developed a reputation for tackling more eclectic and esoteric corners of modernism under Dutoit’s successor Kent Nagano. Now under Payare it has acquired a weight and depth of tone which suits the central European repertoire down to the ground, while preserving its trademark pliancy and transparency. This was already obvious from their first Pentatone recording, an acclaimed account of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.

That combination of strength and beauty is evident right from the very start of Ein Heldenleben, where the grand opening gesture has both grit and nobility and – as the opening section progresses – telling details like the plucked crotchet triplets in the lower strings give the music a welcome buoyancy. This impression is enhanced by Pentatone’s exceptionally vivid and transparent recording, made in Montreal’s Maison symphonique. As the work progresses, the reflective sections make just as much impression as those passages that caused such critical outrage at its 1899 premiere. Concertmaster Andrew Wan’s solo in the work’s third section, ‘The Hero’s Companion’ (a whimsical portrait of Strauss’s wife Pauline) is surely one of the loveliest and most teasing on disc. The sniping of the Hero’s Adversaries, the mêlée of the Battle, and the liberal peppering of overlapping quotations from Strauss’s own output in ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’ are all superbly handled by Payare and his musicians, while avoiding any feeling of micromanagement. By the time we reach the glowingly affecting close, the listener will understand the meaning of the term ‘unforced virtuosity’.

Just as remarkable is the account of Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, sung with luminous radiance and marvellous clarity by star soprano Sonya Yoncheva. All five songs are here (with ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ in Max Pullman’s orchestration), and the ordering is similar to that adopted by Janet Baker and Barbirolli on their famous EMI recording, but with the order of the first two songs reversed. This means that the sequence opens with the sparkling luminescence and fragile string lines of ‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft’ before progressing to the scherzo-like folkishness of ‘Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!’. ‘Um Mitternacht’ makes a haunting centrepiece, the woodwind section wonderfully sensitive and idiomatic.

The touching intimacy of ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ – a personal gift from Mahler to his new bride Alma, and the only one of the set that de didn’t orchestrate – gives way to the transcendent stillness of ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ with its anticipations of Das Lied von der Erde. Yoncheva and Payare make this feel like both a summation and a crossing into another realm, yet like all these songs it unfolds with a deceptive ease that is most compelling. It’s a long way from the grandiose gestures of the disc’s opening, and for the listener it’s a thoroughly absorbing journey into the crucible where late Romanticism became early modernism. An unexpected coupling, then, but a magical one.

Reviews

There is an epic sweep to their playing in Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung and the orchestra leader Andrew Wan is superb in the passages for solo violin. ... Much to enjoy...

The Sunday Times 7 April 2024